Saturday, June 4, 2016

8241. KAPASUKI, YOUR NAMESAKE

KAPASUKI, YOUR NAMESAKE
You say you were born in Oklahoma.
But I cannot for a moment believe that.
It is far too warm for your cold, unsettled
type. And besides, tornadoes make you
angry, and I can hear you gripe. Or make
imagination tell me I am hearing such.
-
One time, here, when I was doing something
and looked up, I saw a man on fire, running
to the sea. Just today, in that same location,
I was sitting, with my dog, looking out to
the harbor before me, and a woman came
over to speak. She was old, some bit older
than me. She pointed to a distant, rusting
tower, in an abandoned old lot a ways off.
She said, 'That was the Pan Am Seaplane
landing strip, in the 1940's, did you know?
I worked for them until 1974.'
-
I figured her for 80. 'I had no idea of that,'
I replied. She then went on, in a strange and
rambling fashion, how, 'One time, in NYC,
I was involved, in my office at Pan Am  - 
they were the greatest airline, you know,
absolutely magnificent  -  with the very
first plane hijacking ever. I took the call
from Charles Lindbergh himself, asking me
to find the President of the company, Mr.
Juan Trippe, in the building somewhere,
and put him on so they could talk a strategy
for this hijacking and the media. I simply
did as I was told.' I had to think  -  when did
Lindbergh die, was she saying something
truthful, was she mad? I stayed polite, but
kind of realized already I was done and
hoped she'd go.
-
She got in her car, and left. And then she
turned around, and drove right back, up
to me, and rolled down her window. 'If
you go over there,' pointing to the airstrip
area, 'and if the same guy owns it, ask him
to show you the two photo books they have
of pictures of all those days . When things
like that were good. Now, now all we get
are tragedies like Lockerbie.'

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